[Flashback scene]
[YOUNGER WOMAN is in a hospital room looking somnambulistic. OLDER WOMAN, elegant-looking with long black hair, is looking out the nearby window.]
OLDER WOMAN: Well, you're missing out on some classic October Gotham weather. Nothing but rain for the last week.
[YOUNGER WOMAN is silent, looking ahead.]
OLDER WOMAN: Have they let you know when you're getting out?
YOUNGER WOMAN: Tomorrow, once I've filled out a safety plan.
OLDER WOMAN: You know if you need anything, just call. Any time, anywhere.
YOUNGER WOMAN: I just feel so silly. I...can't explain it. What else are you supposed to do when you suck at life?
OLDER WOMAN: Where are you going to go?
YOUNGER WOMAN: Home.
OLDER WOMAN: Are you sure?
YOUNGER WOMAN: Yes.
[We cut back to YOUNGER WOMAN's apartment at nighttime, now her BOYFRIEND is home, watching TV with a beer. YOUNGER WOMAN is sitting silently at the kitchen table behind him, staring at the wall, with a glass of wine in front of her.]
[She then grabs her purse and heads out]
BOYFRIEND: What's so important?
[YOUNGER WOMAN doesn't respond]
BOYFRIEND: Don't you turn your back on me!
[BOYFRIEND follows YOUNGER WOMAN to the street.]
BOYFRIEND: Just like that? After everything you put me through? I will find you! I will find you!
[In the last panel, we can just barely make out the glint of Batman's insignia in the dark alley behind BOYFRIEND.]
[BARBARA is in the Batcave, putting on her costume. We see that she puts on a necklace with one pearl before wearing her costume.]
[The next panel is a flashback from the famous pic of BARBARA paralyzed in "The Killing Joke." The necklace is made out of one of the pearl earrings she wore the night Joker attacked her.]
[BATGIRL then jumps into action. We see her zoom down a Gotham street in her motorcycle, and towards the bay. She stops when she sees a group of police cars, coroner's vans, etc. near the water.]
[There's a council hearing room. COUNCILMAN TANNER is grilling COMMISSIONER GORDON, who's wearing his dress uniform while testifying. We can see the Gotham skyline in the background, indicating that the council chambers are high up in a building.]
GORDON: As you know, our department is underfunded, overworked, and tasked with keeping safe a city with the world's third-highest crime rate. We do the best we can.
TANNER: I appreciate that, Commissioner, I really do. And I've been arguing for years that we could restructure our budget to give you additional resources at no extra cost to taxpayers.
But Gotham citizens are fed up with excuses. And they're fed up with the continued inability to hold corrupt officials accountable.
GORDON: Um, was that a question? Again, we've turned the entire Firefly matter to the Department of Justice. Until they have finished their investigation, it's inappropriate for me to comment one way or the-
TANNER: My constituents need answers, Commissioner. They need to know how a detective staff of more than 200 completely dropped the ball on a city-wide conspiracy which orchestrated the breakout of a convicted terrorist arsonist and perpetuated a scheme which has so far implicated five sheriff's deputies, seven staffers with the county appraisal office,
[new panel showing WAYNE and SHRECK in the back of the room]
-nine with the city fire inspections board, four members of the insurance oversight board, six city council members
[back to GORDON]
and involved the destruction of 20 city blocks, $200 million in property damage, and 22 deaths.
[back to TANNER]
Quite possibly the biggest insurance scam in the history of this country.
This is a new day in Gotham, Commissioner. Candidates like Bruce Wayne and officials like DA McClintock have shown that the status quo is unacceptable to Gotham's citizens. And so is a police force that continually turns a blind eye to rampant corruption and disorder.
WAYNE: Oversight committee is a hell of a platform for Tanner to launch a campaign for council president. At least in Gotham.
SHRECK: You really started something here. What took you so long?
[BRUCE returns to his mansion, and sees DAMIAN.]
DAMIAN: I still can't believe it. Shreck. After all we know about him, after Cobblepot.
BRUCE: He got half of the council elected. I either make one deal with him or I make 100 deals with 100 guys like him.
DAMIAN: In this campaign you're still planning on losing?
BRUCE: Respectably lose.
And you know the saying, keep your enemies close.
DAMIAN: But your family closer.
[BRUCE walks down into the Batcave, sees BARBARA at the computer.]
BRUCE: Here's a pro-tip, get sleep during the day. Get blackout blinds.
BARBARA: Believe it or not, hacking is easier now.
BRUCE: What are you hacking?
BARBARA: Boobs.
BRUCE: With the BatComputer?.
BARBARA: They found a floater in Gotham Bay today. A woman, she looked young. I think she had implants.
BRUCE: GCPD knows to look for those.
BARBARA: Yeah, but what if the implant isn't there anymore? The saltwater corrosion caused it to leak. The body decayed, but you could still make out some of the serial numbers that had rubbed off.
BRUCE: You could make them out? In the dark?
BARBARA: I have an eye for detail. It comes with an eidetic memory.
Of course I have no idea which provider made the implant, so it's going to take some time to track this down.
BRUCE: It's just one person, remember that. It could be a suicide, a drunk. This is a city of 30 million people.
BARBARA: I also noticed scars around her ankles, it looked post-mortem. I think someone weighed her down, didn't want her to be found. If she jumped in the Gotham Bay why did it take them so long to find her?
BRUCE: She's still just one person.
BARBARA: So we ignore her.
BRUCE: We patrol a city with the world's third-highest crime rate. We do the best we can.
[As he walks away.]
You're still thinking like Batgirl, not Batman.
BARBARA: [to herself] Maybe because I'm not the g#%&* mned Batman.
[BRUCE walks up to his mansion, and goes to his living room, where he watches the McCaskill speech on TV.]
MCCASKILL: He inherited a business empire which has coasted on its name under his absentee watch. And now he's claiming him and his billionaire friends are going to clean up Gotham for the working man.
Well-Give. Me. A. Break. Once again, we in Gotham are being told to just turn over our rights, our voice, to the rich and powerful-and then everything will be fine.
Unlike my opponent's vague rhetoric, I have a 15-point plan to end corruption in Gotham. Point 1 is to-
BRUCE is campaigning outside of Arkham Asylum. We can see his campaign posters, with BRUCE pointing dramatically with his index finger, above the campaign slogan-"The Way With Wayne."
BRUCE: Behind me stands a structure-a blight on this city for more than 100 years. A symbol of everything that's wrong with Gotham, and everything that this campaign is about fixing.
Amadeus Arkham would be rolling in his grave if he knew his namesake had turned into a revolving door of psychopaths and terrorists, and the epicenter of this city's system-wide corruption. It is both bloated and underfunded, coddling this city's worst while denying the truly sick from help they need-a true monument to hypocrisy.
It should have been torn down years ago, and in my administration-it will be.
[BRUCE joins crowd in a chant]
TEAR DOWN ARKHAM! TEAR DOWN ARKHAM! TEAR DOWN ARKHAM!
[As BRUCE leaves the podium to begin shaking hands, THOMAS walks up to him.]
THOMAS: You know, most of my staff could double their salaries at pharmaceutical or insurance jobs. They choose to stay here. I think they deserve better than what I just saw.
Suppose you tore this place down tomorrow, what difference would it make?
BRUCE: You're right. But something has to change, this cycle can't go on.
THOMAS: You know, everyone thinks that Firefly broke out of Arkham, but it was actually during a transport, no one on my staff has been implicated-
BRUCE: I know. Look, If I went up there and talked about criminal justice and mental health reform, I could go on for three hours and no one would get it. But Arkham Asylum is a symbol for all that, and I that's something they do get.
THOMAS: Well...this city is into symbols.
[BARBARA is still in the Batcave.]
DAMIAN: So how's your boob search going?
BARBARA: Not nearly as fun as it sounds.
I've got it down to 24 names. None of them are in missing persons, but I've verified that 20 of them are still with us.
That leaves three-Bridget Parker, Carol James, and Meg Fathers.
DAMIAN: He's not going to like how much time you're spending on this.
BARBARA: Yeah, well he told me to follow my instincts.
[BRUCE is sitting at a table at an office in Shreck's Palace, surrounded by SHRECK, SCHREIN and other advisors.]
BRUCE: I don't see any way that the Batman can help us.
SHRECK: He's popular.
BRUCE: He's radioactive, and he won't get me any votes that I don't already have.
I don't think McCaskill realizes it, but going hard after Batman was a gift to my campaign, we should send her one of my form letters. Let her get stuck in a corner on that, it just gives me more room to plug my corruption message, which is the one that really works.
SCHREIN: And what do you think about him?
BRUCE: I think he's less interesting to voters than the food on their tables, the respect of a job, knowing that their hard-earned tax dollars are going to-
SCHREIN: No, I mean, what do you really think about him?
[BRUCE looks at SCHREIN]
SCHREIN: It matters. It'll help me with my job.
BRUCE: I'm not sure if Gotham will ever be ready to move on from him. But someone needs to show them it can.
[BRUCE and SHRECK walk through the casino on their way to their limo.]
BRUCE: This is quite a place, you know.
SHRECK: Despite your best efforts.
BRUCE: I liked the downtown before they approved gambling.
SHRECK: So did I. Shreck's was a downtown monument. The well-to-do, the working-everyone came down here to buy their presents for Christmas. That was Gotham.
[They hop into their limo.]
SHRECK: But Gotham changes, and so do I.
BRUCE: I've noticed.
[When they round into a bad side of town, suddenly vans surround the limo and men wearing knit caps jump out. One wearing a hat with "GG" stitching-the Gotham Goliaths-uses a crowbar to break open the window and opens the door.]
GG: Come with me.
BRUCE: OK.
GG: You've heard of Scarface, right?
BRUCE: The gangster?
GG: Yeah-just do me a favor and go with it, please.
[GG pushes Wayne into a van, while another hoodlum grabs and pushes Shreck. They push both into stools on one side of the van, while on the other side sits VENTRILOQUIST/SCARFACE, with entourage.]
[While Ventriloquist is a well-known Batman adversary, I don't think it's wrong to presume that in the current canon, the true nature of his identity is not well-known to regular Gotham citizens, despite his incarceration at Arkham. So BRUCE will pretend to be surprised by the puppet in these scenes.]
BRUCE: What the hell...[directed to VENTRILOQUIST] What is this?
SCARFACE: See, that's why you're Wayne, champion of the workin' man. A gillionaire who talks to the help. However, I'm the one that really ought to deserve your full, undivided attention right now.
BRUCE [to SCARFACE]: You're Scarface?
SCARFACE: The one and only. And it's an honor to meet the next mayor of Gotham.
BRUCE: Likewise.
SCARFACE: I appreciate that. I'm guessing you mostly know me from the headlines. Total lies. I'm a civic leader, just like you. And like you, I gottan interest in Gotham's future. This city has so much potential, it just needs the right...conductors.
I've noticed you haven't taken a position on the docks project yet. I think you should strongly consider endorsing it. I think it's a perfect match for your message on Gotham's future.
BRUCE: OK.
SCARFACE: Regardless of how you come down on that, I just want to make sure that the lines of communication are open. That's what this meeting is all about.
[BRUCE and SHRECK are at the side of the road.]
BRUCE: This wasn't really about the docks, was it?
SHRECK: No.
BRUCE: He wanted to show he could get to me.
SHRECK: Want to call the police?
BRUCE: And tell them we were just threatened by Jim Henson?
SHRECK: So what do we do?
BRUCE: What else can we do? Go on like nothing happened.
[BATGIRL is speeding through Gotham on her motorbike. Suddenly, a large whip forms a ropeline aimed at her neck and rips her off her bike. A dark figure, FURY-a woman with a shaved head, wearing dark leather-uses two whips to grab at both of Batgirl's arms and pull her toward her.]
FURY: You get one warning. Forget James.
BATGIRL: [Still gasping for air]: Yeah, I don't do well with warnings, just ask my boss.
[BATGIRL backs up into a wall, then runs forward, giving her enough room to grab the whips and yank them forward. FURY holds onto them strong enough to be yanked with them, flipping over BATGIRL's head. BATGIRL runs forward to pin down FURY but FURY uses her whips to grab ahold of a fire escape above and jump upward. BATGIRL uses her grappling gun to jump up as well, trying to beat FURY to the top of the building. BATGIRL thinks she has FURY beat but then is knocked down by FURY, already at the roof, falling to a fire escape a level below.]
FURY: He's holding you back, you know. They all do.
[BATGIRL uses batarangs the dislodge the fire escape, knocking it upward towards FURY while it knocks BATGIRL backwards. Unclear if it hit FURY or not but she clearly moved backwards. BATGIRL shoots another grappling hook to get to the roof, and sees FURY nearing the other side.]
BATGIRL: Why James? Who are you?
FURY: You haven't heard of Madam Fury?
You will.
[FURY jumps to the next building, leaving BATGIRL behind.]
